WBLU sold to Christian network

A low-power Lexington TV station with such a poor signal that it often can't be viewed has been sold to a global Christian network.

WBLU-62 was among a group of 16 stations that Daystar Television purchased for $7.4 million from bankrupt former owner Equity Media Holdings.

Arnold Torres, Daystar's business administrator, said the company plans to convert WBLU's analog signal into digital so it can be viewed more easily. Low-powered stations were not required under federal law to convert from analog to digital, but now might struggle to find viewers in the digital world.

Daystar will explore having a second channel on its signal, Torres said, that would feature family-oriented programming. The operation probably will be handled via satellite instead of locally since WBLU will remain low power, Torres said.

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It will be August or September at the earliest, he said, before anything is done.

WBLU was once operated locally and ran programming from UPN and later The WB. It was acquired a few years ago by Equity, which operated it remotely.

Equity promised improvements that never came, and the station had been running classic TV shows under the Retro Television Network banner until a disagreement in January between Equity and RTN's owner. Henry Luken of RTN's owner, Luken Communications, said he's working to get RTN or one of his other networks — men's network Tuff TV or kids' network PB&J — picked up by an existing Lexington station as a digital subchannel similar to how WKYT also airs The CW.

"We are working on something there, and I can't talk about it," he said.